Support Our Troops

I just sent the following email to President Bush:

Mr. President,

It has come to my attention that 18 members of the 343rd Quartermaster Company, based in Rock Hill, S.C. and serving in Iraq, have refused orders to carry out a mission in unarmored, “deadlined” trucks without an armed escort.

Just like the soldiers at Abu Ghraib Prison, these young men and women will be punished for their breach of discipline. But we know the fault really lies with their superiors, military and civilian, who are ordering them to carry out missions in a combat zone with inadequate equipment and support.

These young men and women of our state militias are being deployed overseas, away from their families and jobs, for far too long. They are in a combat zone that claims their lives on an almost daily basis. And they have to do their jobs using 30-year old, broken down Army-surplus equipment.

I understand that our military is stretched thin and the state militias play an important part alongside our regular Army units. But if they are asked to operate in the same combat zones as our regular Army, they should have the same support and be issued the same state-of-the-art equipment as our regular Army.

The men and women of the state militias must have the confidence that they are not being asked to carry out suicide missions.

Mr. President, I'm asking you to provide our state militias with state-of-the-art equipment for what will probably be a very long deployment in Iraq.

Americans are willing to bear any burden to support our troops, so even if you were to ask us to pay a tax to properly equip and support these young men and women, I suspect you would find that paying taxes becomes a patriotic duty for us.

The South Carolinians in the 343rd Quartermaster Company have shown us there is a problem. They will be punished for it, but I hope you will not let them be punished for nothing.